‘Louis xiv. was a very haughty and self-willed man; he had such and sch mistresses, and such and such ministers, and he governed France Idly. Louis’s successors, too, were weak men, and they, too, governed lance badly. And they had such and such favourites, and such and such listresses. Moreover, there were certain men writing books at this period. .. the end of the eighteenth century there were some two dozen men j Paris who began to talk all about men being equal and free. This led jople all over France to fall to hewing and hacking at each other. These ;ople killed the king and a great many more. At that time there was in ranee a man of genius—Napoleon. He conquered every one everywhere, lat is, he killed a great many people, because he was a very great genius, nd for some reason he went to kill the Africans; and killed them so ell, and was so cunning and clever, that on returning to France he bade /ery one obey him. And they all did obey him. After being made Em- eror he went to kill people in Italy, Austria, and Prussia. And there, jo, he killed a great many. In Russia there was an Emperor, Alexander, ho was resolved to re-establish order in Europe, and so made war with fapoleon. But in 1807 he suddenly made friends with him, and in 1811 e quarrelled again, and again they began killing a great many people, md Napoleon took six hundred thousand men into Russia, and con- uered Moscow, and then he suddenly ran away out of Moscow, and hen the Emperor Alexander, aided by the counsels of Stein and others, inited Europe for defence against the destroyer of her peace. All Napo- eon’s allies suddenly became his enemies; and the united army advanced against the fresh troops raised by Napoleon. The allies vanquished Napoleon; entered Paris; forced Napoleon to abdicate, and sent him 0 the island of Elba, not depriving him, however, of the dignity of Smperor, showing him, in fact, every respect, although five years before, ind one year later, he was regarded by every one as a brigand outside he pale of the law. And Louis xviii., who, till then, had been a laughingstock to the French and the allies, began to reign. Napoleon shed tears oefore the Old Guard, abdicated the throne, and went into exile. Then the subtle, political people and diplomatists (conspicuous among them Talleyrand, who succeeded in sitting down in a particular chair before any one else, and thereby extended the frontiers of France) had conversations together at Vienna, and by these conversations made nations happy or unhappy. All at once the diplomatists and monarchs all but quarrelled; they were on the point of again commanding their armies to kill one another; but at that time Napoleon entered France with a battalion, and the French, who had been hating him, at once submitted to him. But the allied monarchs were angry at this, and again went to war with the French. And the genius, Napoleon, was conquered; and suddenly recognising that he was a brigand, they took him to the island of St. Helena. And on that rock the exile, parted from the friends of his heart, and from his beloved France, died a lingering death, and be-
iii 4 WAR AND PEACE
queathed all his great deeds to posterity. And in Europe the reacti followed, and all the sovereigns began oppressing their subjects agai'
It would be quite a mistake to suppose that this is mockery—a cark ture of historical descriptions. On the contrary, it is a softened-doi picture of the contradictory and random answers, that are no answe < given by all history, from the compilers of memoirs and of histories ' separate states to general histories, and the new sort of histories of t culture of that period.
What is strange and comic in these answers is due to the fact th modern history is like a deaf man answering questions which no one h. asked him.
If the aim of history is the description of the movement of humanii and of nations, the first question which must be answered, or all tl rest remains unintelligible, is the following: What force moves nation: To meet this question modern history carefully relates that Napolec was a very great genius, and that Louis xiv. was very haughty, or th; certain writers wrote certain books.
All this may very well be so, and humanity is ready to acquiesce in it but it is not what it asks about. All that might be very interesting if w recognised a divine power, based on itself and always alike, guiding it peoples through Napoleons, Louis’, and writers; but we do not acknowl' edge such a power, and therefore before talking about Napoleons, an Louis, and great writers, we must show the connection existing betwee: those persons and the movement of the nations. If another force is pu in the place of the divine power, then it should be explained what tha force consists of, since it is precisely in that force that the whole interes of history lies.
